


Hamlet's Dilemma

by Dawnwind



Category: I Spy (1965)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-16
Updated: 2011-04-16
Packaged: 2017-10-18 04:40:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/185091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dawnwind/pseuds/Dawnwind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Missing scene for “Anyplace I Hang Myself is Home”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hamlet's Dilemma

“Kel, look at me!” Scotty commanded but his partner didn’t turn away from his examination of the Rodin’s “The Thinker.” “You’d give up what we had?”

Kelly turned, his angular face pale, “No. But I have to do this.” Confusion warred with resolve on his face, he didn’t know why he had to, only that he was compelled.

Scotty understood, even now, when he looked over at the imposing bulk of the bronze sculpture, he felt a draw on his psyche to do the unthinkable. Exactly what Kelly was thinking of.

“Jack, you never did anything you didn’t want to in your life,” Scotty scoffed, wanting to simply grab Kelly’s arm and drag him away, but the physical need to kill himself would still be there, stronger than mere words. The memory was deep, roots tangled around the real experiences they’d had. “Kel, don’t think about that. Remember Tokyo, Mexico City . . . China –any place but San Francisco.”

“Hate to break it to you, Duke, but we’re here in the City by the Bay.” Kelly raised his head wearily, but he was looking straight at Scotty, and that was a start. “You said we’d look at a statue and then talk about our lives. So—start talking. Why do I feel this way, Dr. Freud?”

“Unfortunately, you have to remember yourself, or the spell won’t be broken.” Scotty held out his arm and was vastly relieved when Kelly tucked himself into Scotty’s body and let himself be led away. The feel of Kelly’s exhaustion bled through to Scotty’s arm, feeding his own fatigue. He’d jumped out of a hospital bed to go save his partner, and suddenly even that maniacally uncomfortable excuse for a bed sounded good. A plush hotel suite sounded even better.

When they got to the curb facing the curved parking lot of the Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco’s elegant classical museum of art, Kelly paused, his body tensed, and Scotty could almost sense Kelly’s desire to end his one life all because he’d looked at the wrong piece of sculpture.

Stupidity.

And pure malicious arrogance on the part of those who’d planted the dreadful commands so many years ago.

Kelly shuddered, the vibrations moving down his long torso as if someone had plucked him like a guitar string, and Scotty tugged him away from the fascinating lure of cars moving rapidly down the hilly drive toward California Street.

“Spell, huh?” Kelly gave a discordant laugh, all angles and sharp spikes, and Scotty thought back to the frightening time a year before after Kelly had been tortured. Coaxing his partner down from Coit Tower may have been the easiest part of all this. Unlike Scotty, Kelly was already prone to dark depression and suicide. Even after some psycho-babble and rest, he was often on the edge looking out into the void. Remembering the triggers might not banish the desire for self-annihilation all together. “Sounds like we’re in some kind of Grimm’s fairy tale.”

“More like a horror story.” Scotty unlocked the door to the car Russ had loaned them, glad he’d managed to find a parking place so near the entrance to the museum.

Kelly leaned against the open door, frowning at Scotty. “Far be it from me to question the latest fashions, Jack, but you’re still wearing your pajamas.”

“I am indeed. All part of my disguise as a convalescing superhero,” Scotty said lightly, watching to make sure Kelly put on his seat belt before he locked the car door. Always good to have one more safety precaution against Kelly jumping out in the middle of traffic.

“Certainly.” Kelly clasped his hands together, relaxed and mildly sardonic on the outside, but Scotty could see the demons circling him. Kelly felt too much, a real drawback for a secret agent. He remembered all the pain, the tortures, and the dangers far too vividly. There’d be nightmares for weeks after this debacle, and Scotty mentally, as well as physically, belted himself in for the ride.

 

The Fairmont hotel atop California Street hill like a dowager empress looking down on her city was far above the usual price range stipulated by the agency they worked for but Scotty didn’t care in the least. As with many elegant establishments, it had luxurious amenities, a commanding view and a staff that catered to its clientele’s every whim. Scotty could afford to pay the bill. His government pay as an operative was well over minimum wage and he rarely had opportunity to use the money. He and Kelly were very, very good at manipulating their expense accounts so that they were reimbursed for nearly every penny they spent on a mission.

There was no official mission this week. The unofficial nature of their stay at the Fairmont was far more important to Scotty. Saving his partner’s sanity and preventing a suicide necessitated drastic means—and solitude. The last thing he wanted was Russ knowing where they were and busting in at the absolutely wrong moment. Russ had been surprisingly helpful with Scotty’s recovery, but his brusque nature did not mesh with Kelly Robinson’s high-strung temperament.

Even now, away from one of the most famous statues in the world, back on what should be firm ground, since they checked into a different hotel just about every other week, Scotty could still feel Kelly’s anxiety as if it were his own.

To an outsider, Kelly looked anything but stressed out. His whippet thin body slouched indolently against one of the round burgundy velvet banquettes that dotted the lobby, ankles crossed, and the smoke from his cigarette curling lazily around his head. A girl in a blue pleated mini skirt sashayed by, but Kelly didn’t track her passage like a bird dog on the scent as he usually would have. Instead, he sucked deeply on his cigarette, totally focused inward as if examining his psyche for flaws. The expression on his face said he’d found some.

Scotty kicked Kelly’s white tennis shoe. “You going to make me carry all this stuff?” he asked, hefting both suitcases but leaving Kelly’s sports bag where it lay.

“You’re the one who insisted in bringing it. Could have left this stuff back at the hotel the agency approves of.” Kelly inhaled the last of his nicotine fix and ground the butt out in a ashtray, obliterating the stylized F molded in the sand. The muscles in his jaw jumped and twitched, betraying his cool exterior but he made no other comment, just scooped up his bag.

Scotty knew his partner well. Kelly was in so deep he couldn’t see anything but the slick inky sides of the prison he’d constructed. Except, he hadn’t been the one to put up the walls, he’d only lived with them lurking in the recesses of his brain for six years. Dr John Akivic and that proto Mata Hari, Cass McGregor, had started the process, using mind control and subliminal suggestion as brick and mortar to wall in the memory of their malfeasance.

With his own blockade in ruins, Scotty could remember the whole debacle—the clumsy foray into breaking and entering, and the unwitting discovery. At any other time, he and Kelly might have basked in the glory of uncovering a nest of traitors there in the midst of the training grounds. They’d have received commendations and maybe a nice weekend in a place like the Fairmont for their service to the good ol’USA.

Instead, the doctor had opened up his bag of nasty tricks and etched a new memory of fear, pain and self-destruction into the brains of the neophyte agents. Robinson, Scott and Wally McGregor, Cass’s big blond, dumb-as-a-bunny husband, were strapped to chairs and wired for electricity so that their brains could be scrambled like a bowl of cracked eggs.

Damn Akivic and Cass.

At least the doctor was already in custody, his amazingly successful plan laid out for the entire agency to see. All, except Kelly. Unless he chipped his way through the thick walls himself, he would carry the lethal time bomb in his memory until some other chance encounter with Rodin’s Thinker.

The miracle was that he’d avoided the statue for this long. Wally McGregor had died in Paris after a visit to Rodin’s garden museum where the twin of the statue here in San Francisco resided.

Oddly, Scotty and Kelly had never been assigned to Paris. Not once in six years. They’d come through The City by the Bay countless times without ever taking a side tour to the Palace of the Legion of Honor until now. They’d once roamed through an exhibit in Tokyo that had displayed Rodin’s huge nude figure “The Age of Bronze.” No glimmer of a need to kill himself after that, Scotty reflected. Kelly had been grouchy the whole trip, but that probably had more to do with his loss at an international tennis tournament against a Spanish tennis pro than with any depression stemming from Rodin’s artistry.

“This be the place, boss,” Kelly said, drawing out his words like Amos and Andy. The elevator doors slid open with a low whine that set Scotty’s teeth on edge. Kelly hunched his shoulders as if in real pain, tapping another cigarette out of the package. “Tenth floor, no lady’s lingerie or undergarments to be seen. Just a couple of messed up spies with no place to hang themselves . . . ”

“Their hats,” Scotty corrected, to stall any discussion of suicide until they were in the room, at least. “Room 1019, on the left there.”

“Throw me the key.” Kelly deftly caught the tiny missile left-handed without dropping the now lit cigarette or the bag with the tennis rackets and balls. He tucked the cigarette between his lips to slide the key into the door and swung it open. The sports bag made it just four feet past the door, landing on the floor with a thump. Kelly stepped over that, heading straight to the magnificent view of the San Francisco bay and the two bridges that bracketed the curved body of water.

Scotty dumped the suitcases on the nearest bed, not caring where they lay. He was bone tired, the bruising along his ribs from the encounter with a moving car aching badly enough to give him fond thoughts about the hospital. That only led to comparisons of the uncomfortable hospital bed with its hard metal frame versus the ultimate comfort of a high quality hotel mattress with a down feather top, and it was no contest. Still, there’d be no sleeping for a while. Not yet. Not until Kelly remembered.

With his hip butted against the window glass, Kelly appeared to be floating above San Francisco, about ready to dive into the bay and have a swim. Just looking at him twisted Scotty’s insides into Play-Doh. What was Kelly thinking? Was the lure of the Golden Gate bridge, where more people went to jump off than any other structure in the US, such a powerful draw? Free-fall off the garish orange bridge, straight down into the infamous potato patch where the water swirled in a vortex between the pylons.

Giving himself a mental shake, Scotty came up just behind Kelly, close enough to smell the tobacco, after-shave and faint odor of fear-sweat. He wanted to pull Kelly away, extract the memories and protect him from the nightmares that would burst forth in the aftermath.

“Did you think about it, beforehand?” Kelly asked, his face turned away so that all Scotty could really see was the glow of his cigarette against the graying twilight of the city.

The hotel was on one of the highest hills with the rest of the city spread out like a map below them, street lights blinking on as the shadows lengthened. Only Coit Tower was much higher, by virtue of its geographic location, and Kelly had already tried to jump from there. Scotty began to reconsider the wisdom of staying in such a lofty perch.

“Before what?”

“You walked in front of a car, man,” Kelly said with a bewildered hint of admiration.

“Yes, indeedy, I did,” Scotty agreed, his belly twisting tighter. “You tried to jump from a building. You still want to, don’t you?”

Kelly blew out smoke from his nostrils letting the pall surround him, another barrier to hide behind.

“Yeah.”

Scotty remembered all the other times, the times Kelly had tried when he wasn’t even goaded on by to a self-destructive programming that had no basis in fact. Kelly could motivate himself toward annihilation all on his own, thank you very much. That time in Mexico, after he was brainwashed to believe Scotty a traitor, and in Spain when the “other side” had tortured him until he was poised to break, snap like a twig in a storm. And every time Sam Than McLean left him damaged and sucked dry for Scotty to pick up the pieces.

He’d always picked them up, dusted Kelly off and sat him down, let him drink the sorrow away to lock up the pain until the next time. They both excelled in not dealing with what hurt the most—rejection, fear, and being used and abused by the government they tried to support. Well, no more. This was the end. Scotty was changing the rules today.

First order of business, getting Kelly to talk. Second: no more drowning the pain in booze. So what did that leave if Kelly didn’t talk? Scotty considered his options, what he had to work with and what he wanted out of the bargain.

A whole partner, one who didn’t marinate in the pain of all the lies, deceit and corruption. One who would open his eyes and see, clear and forthright, into the eyes of another who loved him.

“I’m not going to let you,” Scotty said finally.

Kelly made an odd little sound, almost a malignant chuckle, but more of a growl. “I wish you would.”

“Kel, look at me,” Scotty commanded.

“Can’t see you, man,” Kelly said, blanketed in despair. “I see that damned statue in my head, lurking like an assassin and he keeps whispering ‘the roof’ and ‘knives,’ shit like that.”

Scotty took his arm but Kelly was rock hard, immovable. “Would you do it right in front of me?”

“In front of you, no. Can’t do that.” He shook his head, and Scotty moved one hand up to Kelly’s neck, pressing his palm against the tight muscles along the slope of his shoulder. “I don’t even know why, y’know? Other times . . .” He hissed in pain when the cigarette burned down to his finger, and turned, separating himself from Scotty’s hand to snub the butt out in an ashtray. “Jack, this soldier’s all done in. Gonna take a bath.”

“No.” Scotty took a step back, seeing Kelly’s retreat for what it was. And the bathroom held so many ways to end a life—razors, tubfuls of water, acres of mirrored glass that could be shattered and used as a blade. “Russ told me he talked to you, about our training days.”

Kelly didn’t speak, which was not the gregarious, chatterbox Scotty was used to. Kelly could use words to hide behind when he had nothing else. He could charm the most prune-faced matron into a simpering school girl who’d give anything to flirt with the Davis Cup winner. So where was that guy now?

“Said you called me clumsy,” Scotty baited. “Implied a lack of hip.”

“Au contraire, my good fellow.” Kelly faked bonhomie so well Scotty almost believed the ruse. “You were the supreme master of hip, the Duke of cool, but couth and a certain je ne sais quoi only came once we were partnered. No, the clumsy one was Wally.”

“Poor Wally,” Scotty commiserated, restraining his excitement. Kelly was so close. “Russ told me he died. Killed himself.”

True, the latter was only speculation that he’d committed suicide because of a certain statue until the CIA, NSA, FBI, whichever alphabet agency had the authority to reopen his case, but Scotty knew, the way he knew what he had done, and what Kelly wanted to do, were all connected like dominos in a row. When one fell, the others toppled.

Kelly looked up, his eyes muddy dark in the half light. That had freaked him, far more than his own desire to off himself. His own internal pain was so ingrained that it was another appendage that he carted everywhere, but the idea that two friends had entertained the same fatalistic tendencies was obviously shocking. His hand trembled when he flicked open his lighter, the flame dancing raggedly. He ignited the tip of a third cigarette. The orange glow was too bright in the dim room, but Scotty didn’t want to jar the mood by switching on the overhead light.

“He—uh . . .’’ Kelly cleared his throat, coughing. “Look at the Thinker?”

“Probably.”

“God.” Kelly dropped onto the other bed, bending one long leg under him so that he could rest the arm holding the cigarette on his knee. “You remember the three of us? Dumb as a handful of rocks, sneaking up on that building.”

“When?” Scotty said, pretending ignorance, all the while silently cheering Kelly on. That’s it, babe, open that door, look through, see the vipers behind the desk.

“You know. The last night. Before . . . ” Kelly had forgotten the cigarette again, lost in the memories. He frowned, the burning ash dropping onto the coverlet before he absently tapped it into the ashtray and left the stub of burning paper balanced on the side. “You, me and Wally, going to break into headquarters. Akivic’s office.” He grimaced this time, clenching his jaw. “Head hurts. I’m beat, let’s just sleep this hangover off for once, huh? Forget it all in the morning.”

“You smoke too much,” Scotty put in, wrinkling his nose at the smell. Odd that it bothered him at that moment. The scent of tobacco was such a part of Kelly Robinson that he rarely paid much attention other than to wave away the smoke when he really wanted to annoy Kelly. “You’ll be off your game on the court in the morning, coughing up tar like an eighty year old curmudgeon.”

Kelly wasn’t paying any attention to him, staring intently at his dead cigarette poised on the edge of a white ceramic dish with a gold stylized F in the center. “That’s all wrong,” he murmured. “Should be a peacock feather . . .not a real one, just . . .” He moaned, pressing the heel of his hand into his forehead, sweat beading on his upper lip. “Can you just leave me the hell alone, Scotty? For one night?”

Scotty hadn’t thought about the fact that he and Kelly might have subtly different versions of the memory. Stands to reason, just as their recollections of the first days in training varied slightly. His first real memories of that night in Akivic’s office had been of raspberry ice cream, the treat he’d had just before setting out. Kelly’s was of a cigarette.

The smell of tobacco smoke and fear sweat clogged his nostrils. Scotty scrubbed at his nose, hearing grunts of pain echoing in his ears. On the bed, Kelly was silent, rubbing his temple, eyes closed. The smells and sounds were not here then—more memories.

“Think about the peacock feather ashtray,” Scotty coaxed. “Where’d you see one like that?”

“The Thinker,” Kelly said, pain screwing up his handsome features making Scotty want to smooth out the tense lines, and maybe kiss the tight knot above his eyebrows. “No, that ain’t right. I dunno.”

“You do, ‘cause I do.”

“Then tell me!” Kelly swept his arm across the nightstand, sending the ashtray and its contents smashing against the far wall.

“Doesn’t work that way, Kel.” Scotty let himself droop, settling wearily into a chair opposite the bed. Far enough away that he didn’t rile Kelly any more than he already had. “You have to remember on your own.”

“You know what I remember most? Hitting you. In the parking lot.”

“Staged a fight that wasn’t all that staged . . .” The smell of smoke and sweat was replaced by good quality leather and cold, damp air. The fog had come in heavy that night—probably while Akivic was sending a couple of volts through his prisoners. Scotty remembered the warm bulk of Kelly’s body, wiry and hard, butting into him with the force of a blow, and then much, much later, Kelly’s slack frame braced against his when they woke in the wet grass.

“I’d pop you right in the mouth if I had the energy.”

“You figure out why the Thinker makes you want to end it and you can pop me anywhere you want to.” Scotty stopped short, hearing the raunchy double entendre too late to take it back.

Kelly chuffed a laugh, a sardonic smile turning his face into a ghoul’s mask. He reached over and switched on the light, blinking in the sudden glare. “Always preferred to suck a good pop.”

“Kel.” Scotty breathed out a sigh, and remembered much, much more. Saw his younger self getting to his feet in the foggy chill of a San Francisco morning, shirt open to reveal small oval burns on his chest, Kelly swaying drunkenly beside him with the exact same burns. They’d watched Wally puke into a clump of Scotch broom and parted ways, all three dazed and confused. Wally went off to the couple’s dormitory he shared with Cass, Kelly and Scotty to their spartan rooms that Kelly had originally dubbed monk’s cells.

Kelly had convinced him to stay in his room, sleep off the bender Scotty was sure he’d never indulged in, and they’d lain side by side in the narrow cot after shedding damp clothing. Kelly’s skin was so cold that Scotty wrapped his arms around him, offering warmth and relative peace. Had bent his head over the raw burn just above Kelly’s left nipple, laying his forehead on the mark, a healing caress. Kelly took Scotty’s cock in his chilly hands, stroked and encouraged the sudden increase in size. So easy, so natural. Just giving and taking of mutual comfort. Neither one of them had said a word when Scotty did the same for Kelly. Not one word—yet through the years, there had been times of great calamity when the only cure for their ills had been that gentle embrace and soothing caress.

Kelly breathed out harshly, his eyes still narrowed. “What good is a hunk of metal called the Thinker if it erases the thoughts right out of your skull? Feels like my head’s going to break in two.”

So easy, so tempting. Scotty could have gotten up, wrapped himself around Kelly and done what came naturally to both of them. Not always a hand job. Sometimes Kelly had used his sweet, hot mouth on Scotty, proclaiming him deep, dark chocolate.  
Not yet, not now.

“C’mon, Charlie,” Scotty urged. “This is the mission so far—three idiots broke into a government facility expecting to find some ‘eyes only’ folder so they could dazzle their classmates with the wonderfulness of their sneakery, and it all went to hell—what happened, Kelly?”

“My script has a page missing,” Kelly quipped. He searched through his jacket pocket for the crumpled pack of cigarettes, the hundred watt bulb from the lamp inking long shadows down the sharp line of his nose. “Wally went first—took him about a half an hour to pick the lock, but he was determined.”

“He wanted to prove himself to Cass,” Scotty dropped in her name, hoping that Kelly would take the bait.

“Cass . . .” Kelly let his head fall back on the padded headboard, eyes closed. “You mean the Wicked Witch of the West. She was . . .” he gasped, panting as if he’d just finished five sets of tennis. “She was there . . .”

“Yes.” Grasping the arms of the chair, Scotty leaned forward, silently urging Kelly onward.

“In Akivic’s office. The destruction of a wonderful, wonderful woman . . .” He erupted off the bed, rushing headlong toward the window, the conditioning compelling him to throw himself from the tenth floor.

“Kelly!” Scotty made a grab for him, but missed. Kelly was used to running the length of a court, swinging a racket; he had strength and agility on his side. Scotty had clarity of mind on his. “Do not do this!” That only slowed him down. “Kelly, look at me!” Scotty commanded.

Both hands up to shove through the glass, Kelly stopped abruptly, his palms smacking the window hard enough to rattle the pane. He was arched like a bow, his whole body prepared for the plunge, breathing so rapidly he was grunting. “A vase of red carnations, The Thinker . . .” Kelly babbled, repeating all the triggers Akivic had embedded in their subconsciouses so long ago. “Cigarette smoke . . .he used electrodes, and a . . .some kinda drug, I don’t know what . . .” The primitive, driving force was dissipating out of him with each word and he sagged, nearly going to his knees before Scotty caught him, pulling Kelly into his arms.

“Hey, hey.” Scotty could feel Kelly’s heart trip-hammering against his own chest and shuffled them both over to the bed to sit down. “You got out the worst of it, we can rest for a while now.”

“Damn him.” Kelly reared back, but Scotty held on, restraining him in case there was another attack of nerves. “That hypocrite. Akivic was having an affair with Cass the whole time. Using Wally like a dupe.”

“Hindsight is always 20/20, especially in this case,” Scotty murmured. Keeping one hand firmly on his partner’s arm, he rubbed the other down Kelly’s bunched back muscles as if he were a race horse after a winning lap. Kelly resisted for half a second, then gave in, submitting to the caress with a tense nod of his head. “He used to pull Cass aside, give her messages. . .” Scotty went on, picturing the two dark heads bent over cups of coffee while Wally played basketball with him on the court outside the former officer’s club. The two conspirators hiding in plain sight the whole time.

“You’re out if you borrow money, have an affair . . .like being in debt or in love, it gives someone else the advantage,” Kelly said through gritted teeth, mimicking Akivic’s opening statements on the first day of training. “Drummed into our skulls. Man, we was played by a true virtuoso.”

“The Issac Stern of spies.”

“Benedict Arnold.”

“Benedict Arnold couldn’t play a violin,” Scotty shot back, more than relieved that Kelly could joke. The dust was settling. It would take a long time before either of them would feel comfortable staring up at the imposing bulk of The Thinker, but Kelly was no longer jumping out of his skin with the compelling need to do himself bodily harm. “I’ll bet the old fool couldn’t even carry a tune.”

“Rhodes scholars just know everything,” Kelly scoffed. He passed a shaking hand down his face, wiping away the sweat. “How come you didn’t know to stay away from that damned statue, huh? Walking in front of a car, my Aunt Fanny.”

“We’re back to that, huh?” Scotty released his hold on Kelly, absently noting that he’d left bruises along his bicep. “You gonna hold that over me? I actually went further than you did? For once, I almost succeeded in the race to come up dead.”

“What are you talking about?” Kelly bristled. “You must have bumped your head on the cement, Henry, cause you’re not making any sense.”

“You get hurt more than any agent in this man’s army, Duke, and you have the nerve to tell me half of those aren’t veiled attempts to lose yourself?” Scotty clamped his mouth shut, appalled that he’d said too much. Kelly scared him far too often. He’d been shot, tortured, stabbed and poisoned. As an athlete, he was accustomed to setting aside the pain to get the job done. The end result was the ignored physical pain too often turned into mental pain—the whys, the what-ifs and recriminations. Long ago, he’d recognized Kelly’s tendency to rush into danger without a back-up plan for a severe lack of self-preservation. Kelly didn’t care if he lived or died.

Scotty did.

“I don’t have to tell you one blessed little thing.” Kelly cursed under his breath, fumbling for the cigarette pack. He pulled out the last fag, lighting up with a quick flash of the lighter. “This here, this . . .if you want to call it a suicide attempt—and I do not, was some kind of mind trick and nothing else.”

Scotty wanted to bring up Greece, when Kelly nearly died from an LSD-like addiction. True, he had not intentionally taken the drug, but he’d given up, let the job whittle away at his ego until there was no self-worth left. Ditto so many other times—that weekend they’d found themselves on Kelly’s uncle’s farm after a last minute rescue from a band of merry torturers. Kelly lived on the edge of the abyss, and Scotty was sorely afraid that some day he would just let himself fall in.

Deliberately getting off the bed to get distance from his partner until he could get his own rampant emotions under control, Scotty picked up the room service menu. He flipped a few pages, searching for something that didn’t turn his stomach. “Like being in debt or in love,” he quoted, sorrow building up inside him. “It gives someone else the advantage.”

“What?”

“You want eggs? Or steak? Quarter pound of prime steer pink enough to still give a moo.”

“I don’t want nothing, except you off my back.” Kelly was closed off, arms crossed over his chest, long body hunched over his bent knees. He contemplated the burning end of the cigarette with the intensity of a poet searching for inspiration.

Scotty shrugged, allowing his eyes to linger on the elegant line of Kelly’s torso, the molding of lean muscle in his arms and back, discernable even through the fabric of his suit jacket. He’d massaged that pale skin after many a tennis match, felt the ripple of tendons and bone under his fingers, known Kelly was alive by the throb of a pulse at the base of his neck, but right then, Kelly could have been carved from stone. When he shifted, tucking one knee down under the other raised one, his resemblance to Rodin’s masterpiece was uncanny. Scotty shuddered, clammy sweat crawling down his neck.

They’d come so close to death, and for what? Came into town to celebrate the retirement of an old friend in the agency. For a damned party that never happened because Scotty had been in the hospital. Would it have been any easier to accept if either of them had offed themselves in the line of duty rather than from an encounter with The Thinker?

“I want some eggs, scrambled,” Scotty announced stubbornly, unwilling to voice his fears aloud. Too stupid. Kelly already knew Scotty worried about him, no need to let slip that it went any further than that. “Can’t make you do anything.”

“I’d love to see you try.” Kelly coughed on the smoke, hissing it through his pursed lips. “Takin’ advantage of me like that . . .” He wasn’t really talking to Scotty and then he was, his eyes widening over the angle of his elbow propped on his bent knee. “Giving you all the advantage.”

“Kel,” Scotty said, surprised that he’d spoken aloud. The air seemed to shift and flow around him, as if they were both in the calm eye of a maelstrom, the only two that had survived the buffeting of torrential winds.

“Cass and Wally,” Kelly said slowly, raising his chin until he was looking straight at his partner.

Scotty could feel the pull of Kelly as if he were being reeled in by a rope.

“Cass and Wally,” Kelly repeated. “Epitomized the whole reason agents aren’t supposed to get involved. Can’t detach. Too emotionally linked. Except in their case, only Wally was caught up because Cass was . . .”

“Rhymes with witch?” Scotty offered.

“You and I,” Kelly went on. The unheeded cigarette burned itself out, still tucked between his first and second fingers.

Scotty held his breath, afraid. Did he actually want his secrets voiced aloud? What the hell would that do to them? To their credibility? Much less to their value as agents? There was also the simple fact of legality—if a white woman couldn’t even marry a black man in certain southern states, how many more laws were broken for two men of different colors to be together?

“You don’t have to.” Scotty put up one hand, the traffic cop of dangerous conversational intersections. If they stopped right then, they could go on as they always had with the occasional work-related hand jobs doled out as necessary. No need to stir up feelings that could never be shoved back in the bottle once they were released. Like Pandora’s hope, love was valuable but scary to hold onto.

“We’ve been hip to hip since I can remember,” Kelly said. “The next morning, after we left Akivic’s office, I. . . You had burns. . .” He inhaled noisily, a sure sign that Kelly was close to breaking down. Then suddenly there was steel in his voice, “When I saw you there the other day, lying on the street—I thought you were dead, man. I thought you’d left me, and I was so angry I couldn’t think straight.” He untangled those long legs, for one moment poised on one foot like an angular crane, and then swooped down, catching Scotty in his arms. “Never told you some things, Ollie. Never told you . . .”

His lips were firm and warm against Scotty’s, and the soft breeze of his breath was like a Spring zephyr after the rain; revitalizing, awakening, an elixir Scotty wanted to bottle up and save for ever. After the rise and fall of half a dozen civilizations and a whirlwind flight to the planets, the kiss ended.

They’d never kissed before. Had always confined the give and take to the sweet friction of skin on skin, maybe a once a year blowjob. This took everything to a whole different level.

Scotty kissed Kelly, concentrating on keeping his eyes open to watch the awe, the dawning peace on his lover’s face. They fit perfectly—almost of a height, so there was no awkward bending or maneuvering to avoid noses or chins. No awkwardness at all, because somehow, through the years, it had all been worked out in advance. The bear hugs after a successful assignment, the shoulder offered to cry on or give support, the hands held when all they had was each other had all prepared them for this sentinel moment of pure bliss.

“You, too?” Kelly asked, his voice husky with pure need.

“The wonderfulness of your lightning quick reflexes . . .” Scotty grabbed onto their usual banter as if it were a life saver and he was drowning, because in truth, he was drowning in Kelly’s dark eyes, and it was hard to breathe. “Beat me to the punch, Robinson. Can’t let you do that again.” He tightened his grip on Kelly’s shoulders, feeling the tremors that shook his partner’s frame when he kissed him again, tongue questing past parted lips to discover the sanctuary of that warm, moist mouth.

“Gonna require lots of practice . . .” Kelly panted, his lips brushing Scotty’s. “And it’s a whole lot more satisfying than volleying balls into the net.”

“Love, set, game,” Scotty said. He had to sit down, or fall down. Knowing how worn out Kelly had been after his trek to the top of Coit Tower, and the subsequent rigmarole involved in waiting while Akivic was booked into Federal custody and then Russ’s influence getting Scotty officially discharged from the hospital, Kelly needed the rest, too. They’d had a day for the record books and it wasn’t even eight o’clock at night yet. “Kel, baby.”

“Baby now, huh?” Kelly asked, his voice shaking, and he sat down on the side of the bed exactly in sync with Scotty. “Another fine mess you’ve gotten me into, Ollie.”

“What are we going to do now?” Scotty voiced the unspoken question hovering between them. Kelly squeezed their clasped hands, patting his pocket for another cigarette, but the packet was empty.

“You’re the scholar, got any words of wisdom?”

“First things first—food and then sleep.” Scotty patted the bed. Unlike most hotels they stayed in where a double meant two small single beds barely big enough for a 12 year old child, the Fairmont provided a pair of queen sized beds fit for . . .well, kings.

“A man with a plan.” Kelly rubbed his thumb along Scotty’s palm and Scotty found himself inordinately distracted. He’d once aced a senior Latin exam during the worst storm Temple University had seen in 50 years. Half the class hadn’t even shown up and the rest were spooked by the lashing rain, roaring thunder and stunning bolts of lightning. Not him. Nothing had ever distracted him from his studies—but the caress of Kelly’s thumb along his lifeline and he was completely undone.

“Turn me into a blithering idiot if you keep doing that,” he groused. “We can both sleep here,” Scotty continued as if his brain weren’t oozing out his ears.

“I like the sound of that.”

So did Scotty. The idea of the two of them curled into each other, two sides of a coin, one dark, the other light, joined by something so primal it couldn’t be explained. “And in the morning, another visit to the museum to look at a statue.”

That put the kibosh on Kelly’s amorous affections, and he pulled back again, his breath harsh to Scotty’s ears. “Seen that thing too many times already.” He flathanded his forehead as if pushing the headache out. “Did you still feel the . . .wanting after you remembered?”

“Yeah,” Scotty admitted. “To be or not to be . . .”

Kelly gave a bitter laugh, “You make that up yourself, Mr. S?”

“Sometimes living is the harder choice, but when you’ve got something to hold onto.” He turned, knowing Kelly was beside him as Kelly always was. A solid, dependable man who loved him. What would result from their joining, a true sexual connection where there had once only been a bond of brother/friends and partners, he did not know. He did know he wanted to discover everything that Kelly had to offer, and give back his own devotion and depth of love.

“We’ll make it, Scotty,” Kelly said softly. “Hasn’t been a statue made that could best us.” He scooted closer so that their thighs touched all the way down from hip to knee. “He’s only bronze, anyway. Winner always takes the gold.”

FIN


End file.
